Iran oil-for-gold swap threatens US dollar

According to reports circulating today, India and Iran have agreed on a major gold for oil swap.

The significance of such a deal is that it is done entirely outside the US dollar. Russia has already agreed to buy Iranian crude without using the dollar.

These deals are being done at a time when the US and the EU are attempting to ratchet up the political pressure on Iran by boycotting Iranian oil. By going around the dollar, the Iranians are not only subverting the boycott, but are delivering a counter-blow that could well have far more serious consequences for the Western economies.

As anyone who follows these matters knows, the US is technically a bankrupt nation. The “value” of the US dollar is maintained by a combination of faith and fear. As the targets of US wrath realize that they can simply work outside the framework that the big Western institutions have imposed on them for the last 75 years, neither the fear nor the faith will keep the dollar aloft much longer.